


There Is Nothing the Matter with the Stars

by AnnabelleVeal



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Competitive Figure Skating, Holding Hands, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Recreational Drug Use, Slice of Life, Snow and Ice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28831113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelleVeal/pseuds/AnnabelleVeal
Summary: In the wake of a potentially career-ending injury, Finn and Poe smoke some weed, take a walk, and think about the future.An extremely niche Aging Competitive Figure Skaters AU
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	There Is Nothing the Matter with the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/gifts).



"Do you want to get high?"

Poe looks over at Finn in surprise, because Finn usually hates getting stoned, fear of the munchies ruining his strict training diet having been drilled into him by his coaches throughout adolescence. But then again Finn's competition season is over, abruptly cut short by the stress fractures in his spine. And Poe—well, officially Poe is "taking a season off," but at twenty-eight and staring down the very real possibility of a double hip replacement by thirty, he knows that all he's actually doing is delaying the inevitable.

So yeah, he wants to get high.

\---

Now that he can order a smorgasbord of weed from an app on his phone and get it delivered within the hour—vape cartridges and waxes and every kind of edible imaginable—Poe finds there’s something almost quaint about rolling a joint. It makes him think of Junior Worlds in Rotterdam, when everyone had gone back to Snap’s hotel room after the closing banquet and huddled around Jess at the windowsill as she produced a contraband dime bag and a grinder. He can still picture the sticky-sweet smell of the smoke hanging in the air, the burn in his sinuses as he’d exhaled out his nose, all of them laughing and giddy with the rebelliousness of youth.

Poe carves out a work space on the corner of the coffee table and sits sprawled on the floor. He licks the rolling paper to seal it and finishes by packing the end and closing with a twist. He lights it and takes a hit, then reaches over to offer some to Finn. He holds the joint steady as Finn leans forward and inhales deeply. When he breathes out, Poe watches the halo of smoke curl around him before dissipating into the air. 

_Beautiful,_ he thinks, and then he says it out loud. 

Finn smiles at him, soft and indulgent, as he tugs at his shoulder and coaxes him onto the couch. "You’re too far away." 

Poe takes another hit and holds it in as he presses himself along Finn's side. He cups the back of his neck and guides him forward. Finn catches on quickly and opens his mouth, letting Poe exhale into his lungs before turning it into a sloppy kiss. "Much better," he says with a grin.

They rearrange themselves so that Finn can stretch out and take some of the pressure off his back. He lies with his head pillowed on Poe's thigh and his breath warm against Poe's stomach where his T-shirt has ridden up. The little furrow of pain between Finn's eyebrows that has been there all afternoon is starting to soften as he relaxes, and Poe thinks that if this is what retirement is like, maybe it won't be so bad.

\---

Poe doesn’t know how long they spend like that, alternating between smoking and making out, but he’s pleasantly stoned by the time they finish the joint. Eventually he has to pee, and he wriggles his way out from under Finn. When he comes back, Finn is standing by the record player, flipping through a box of albums. 

The first time he came over to Poe's apartment, Finn had looked at the assortment of records and laughed. "Why do you only have dad rock?" he’d asked, amused.

The truth was that the whole collection actually _had_ belonged to Poe’s dad and he still couldn’t bring himself to part with any of it. He wasn’t ready yet to be left only with his memories of afternoons spent listening together, his father commenting on songs he thought would make good exhibition programs and telling Poe about the music his mom had skated to.

Poe had half-explained, brushing it off with a joke, but Finn gave him a sidelong look—understanding and something else in his eyes—before taking a second pass and conceding that it wasn't _all_ dad rock; some of it was art school bullshit. Then he had put on _The Velvet Underground_ and sank to his knees in front of Poe, right there on the living room floor, and sucked him off while Lou Reed sang about _some kinds of love._

In the present, Finn makes a selection and drops it onto the turntable while Poe rolls another joint. He takes a hit, relishing the way the smoke warms him from the inside, how the melting feeling of calm coils around the back of his brain. He watches Finn do a little shimmy across the room towards him as Talking Heads start to play. Finn plucks the joint from his fingers and puts it between his lips. He holds it there while he gingerly lowers himself down to the floor, using a hand on Poe’s shoulder for support. 

Once Finn is stretched out beside him, Poe closes his eyes and drifts contentedly, letting the music wash over him.

"Do you"—Finn breaks off, biting back a laugh, and Poe cracks one eye to look at him as he tries again— "Do you ever think about your Psycho Killer short program?"

Poe groans, covering his face with his hands. “No, please, I thought we agreed to never talk about that.”

"No, no, it was great!" Finn says, fully laughing now as he pulls at Poe's arm and tries to get him to look up. "You were so committed, with the giant suit and everything."

" _God,_ I was such a weird kid." Poe tips his head back onto the couch cushion. "I still can't believe Leia let me do that."

"The first time I saw the video, I remember thinking that it looked like so much _fun._ " Finn still has a hand on Poe’s arm, and he slides it down to intertwine their fingers as he settles back against Poe’s side. "I never got to have any say in my programs—not music, costumes, nothing—not until I came to skate here."

Finn still does this every once in a while, drops some depressing revelation about his childhood training with a horrifying nonchalance, like he thinks it's totally normal. 

"That does explain some of the design choices," Poe says, as he strokes his thumb along the back of Finn's hand. "Though I have to admit, your La Mer free skate costume was particularly, uh, _inspired._ " The costume in question was a skin-tight, white lycra sailor suit, like something straight out of a Tom of Finland drawing, that had left _very_ little to the imagination.

Finn lifts his head from where he has been leaning against Poe's shoulder, craning his neck to look up at him with a sly smile. "That's a nicer way of saying you jerked off to it, isn't it?"

"Buddy," Poe says with a laugh, "that spring when you first showed up at the rink, I was jerking off to pretty much _anything_ just to try to keep from jumping you."

"Well," Finn says mildly, "you've never shied away from fighting losing battles."

\---

Finn decides he wants snacks, and Poe has never been able to deny him anything, so they bundle up and head out. The sun has already set, and there is a fresh layer of snow on the ground and more still coming down. With all the students gone for winter break, the neighborhood is unusually quiet.

"Since neither of us are training at the campus rink right now, are we officially townies?"

Finn turns his head to look at him, the fur on his parka hood blocking his peripheral vision. "We've always been townies. I think if you're not a student or an employee at the college, that makes you a townie."

"Huh," Poe says. "Well, I guess now that I'm retired, I should really lean into it. Get a lot of eccentric hats or something."

Finn hums in agreement. "You do look good in hats." They walk on a little longer before he asks, voice carefully casual, "So you _are_ retired, then?" 

Poe exhales, not quite a sigh, and watches the cloud of his breath unfurl in front of him. "I'm not sure. Maybe?" He tucks his chin down into the collar of his jacket, trying to block some of the wind. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do if I'm not skating."

Finn doesn't push any further, just bumps his shoulder against Poe's and they trudge on. They pass by the bank, and the clock on the marquee outside confirms that it's not actually late, just dark. The temperature is dropping steadily, and with his high starting to fade Poe can really feel it. For how much of his life he has spent in ice rinks, he thinks he ought to have gotten used to the cold, but he still hates it. He can't stand the way it seeps into his body, how it makes his chest tight and his aching joints even stiffer.

Up ahead the crossing signal flashes red, and they wait on the corner while the few cars out on the road pass through the intersection. Poe left his good gloves in his other coat, and the thin knit ones he's wearing don't provide much insulation. He rubs his palms together to try to generate some heat. Finn turns towards him and takes Poe's hands, tucking them into the pockets of his parka along with his own. The motion pulls Poe forward and they end up pressed together, faces inches apart. "Better?" Finn asks quietly, and Poe counts the snowflakes on his eyelashes as he leans in to kiss him.

\---

"Where would you want to live if training wasn't a factor?"

They have finally made it to the 7-Eleven, a shining fluorescent beacon among the snowdrifts and darkened strip malls, and now they're wandering along the aisles while a sullen teenage cashier watches from behind the register.

"Somewhere warm," Poe says, eying the various flavors of Combos. "I would throw my skates over my shoulder and walk south until someone asks me what they are. Like Odysseus."

"I think even in the tropics people know what ice skates are. And it gets cold again if you go far enough south. Phish Food or AmeriCone Dream?" Finn ducks back out from behind the freezer door, holding a pint of ice cream in each hand. Poe wants to point out the masochism of eating ice cream in sub-freezing weather, but Finn lobs both cartons into the shopping basket he's holding before he gets the chance. 

"What about you? Where would you go if you had your pick?" Poe asks. He settles on the honey sriracha flavor and adds a couple bags of hot fries to the basket for good measure.

"I guess I'd go wherever you were," Finn says with a shrug, like it's that simple, and maybe it is.

\---

They cut through the park on the way back home. The clouds have mostly cleared away, and the moonlight reflecting off the snow gives everything an otherworldly glow. Out on the frozen duck pond, a man is teaching a puffy-coated child how to skate. The sight of them makes something clench in Poe's chest, calling up fuzzy memories of his mother holding his tiny hands in her own, vowing to not let him fall as he took his first tentative, wobbling steps onto the ice.

Finn has also stopped to watch the pair. "Sometimes I wish I could have had that," he says, sounding a little wistful.

"Which part?"

"Just...skating for fun. I can't remember a time when it wasn't about training. About winning." He looks over at Poe then, a defeated sort of expression on his face. "Even now when I might have to give it all up, I still couldn't tell you if I _like_ skating. I just know I'm good at it, and that's the only thing anyone ever seemed to care about." 

"Well, let's try right now." Finn furrows his brow in confusion and Poe clarifies, "Skating just for fun. Just for the hell of it. Let's see if you like it."

Shuffling out onto the ice in their snow boots isn't really all that much like skating, but they try their best. They slip-slide along, building up some speed and doing hopping little waltz jumps and bowlegged spins. Poe steps wrong on his bad hip, and when Finn reaches out to catch him, they fall into a dance hold. They keep coasting across the pond like that, twirling and dipping but never letting go.

Eventually they drift to a stop, breathing heavily and still holding onto each other. Between them their breaths condense into a single intermingling cloud, like an echo of earlier on the couch.

"So?” Poe asks. “What's the verdict? Do you like it?"

Finn looks thoughtful for a moment. "I know I like this," he says, raising their clasped hands. "Maybe for now that's enough." 

"Yeah," Poe says. "Yeah, it is." Because he might not know what his life will look like without skating, but he knows that Finn will be right there beside him, steady and sure.

There will be time later for the hard conversations about decisions to be made—rehab and retirement, figuring out what comes next. But tonight, they do not have to worry about the future. Tonight they can get high and eat ice cream and glide along the ice hand in hand, underneath a clear winter sky full of stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from [this](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52502/in-the-winter-of-my-thirty-eighth-year) poem by W.S. Merwin


End file.
